#Sacrificial

Self-sacrificial love is a real thing. But you won't see the following kind of story anywhere in mainstream media. When missionaries are mentioned in MSM, it tends not to be good.

But there's a lot more to the story.

Re-post:

David and Laurie Vanderpool live in Haiti; they expect to die there. David is a surgeon. They provide clean water, medical care, and food to the poor. They could have air conditioning, fine food, comfort and entertainment in America. But to give their lives to the Haitian poor, they had to give it up. They're Christian missionaries.

They are attacked sometimes by those who practice voodoo. It's a powerful force. "My wife has been held at gunpoint and pistol-whipped. And had a knife to her throat. I know to American ears that sounds sort of, that sounds horrible, you know?" 

Yes, it does.

photo

Why would anyone live like this when they could have lived a comfortable life? Because they believe God wants them there, and because they think the good they do for the people of Haiti is worth it. 

They see beauty in a life of sacrifice. 

Mary Slessor 2

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

Reports that those remote villages were unsafe were quite true. Male missionaries had been killed, but possibly a single woman would not be perceived as a threat. She learned the language and adopted many local customs and was allowed to live.

But she took a stand against other customs. Twins were considered the offspring of demons and  routinely abandoned to death. Women and slaves were killed at the death of the husband/owner so that they could continue to serve him in the afterlife. 

In the spirit of imago dei, she saved hundreds of lives. Against the advice of her agency, she adopted nine of those children as her own. She grew in the community's respect even to the point of settling disputes. When the British empire wanted to set up a court system, she became the first female magistrate in the empire.

"Mary was known for her disdain towards murder, but she always transformed the village through the love of God, not through force like the British. Mary protected Nigerian tribes from the British force and imperialism, by transforming their culture rather than abolishing it."

Mary Slessor 1

Missionaries are ordinary people, which means they are imperfect and they all have their differences. Actually, they are ordinary Christians (imperfect but forgiven by God) who are motivated to do something about it.

Despite the narrative you may have heard, they were/are not all arrogant colonizers. 

Mary Slessor grew up in Scotland, heard the gospel and received the Christian message for herself. On hearing that famous missionary David Livingstone had died, she was inspired to go to Africa as a single missionary. 

photo

Her bold personality and faith convictions resulted in some unusual behaviors for 19th century missionaries. She cut her hair, abandoned Victorian dress while in country, and ate local food. She wanted to reach remote villages considered unsafe and eventually managed to do it. 

from Breakpoint

(cont'd tomorrow)

Sacrificial

Re-post from 2018

David and Laurie Vanderpool live in Haiti; they expect to die there. David is a surgeon. They provide clean water, medical care, and food to the poor. They could have air conditioning, fine food, comfort and entertainment in America. But to give their lives to the Haitian poor, they had to give it up. They're Christian missionaries.

They are attacked sometimes by those who practice voodoo. It's a powerful force. "My wife has been held at gunpoint and pistol-whipped. And had a knife to her throat. I know to American ears that sounds sort of, that sounds horrible, you know?" Yes it does.

photo

Why would anyone live like this when they could have lived a comfortable life? Because they believe God wants them there, and because they think the good they do for the people of Haiti is worth it. 

They see beauty in a life of sacrifice. 

(cont'd tomorrow)

Sacrificial

David and Laurie Vanderpool live in Haiti; they expect to die there. David is a surgeon. They provide clean water, medical care, and food to the poor. They could have air conditioning, fine food, comfort and entertainment in America. But to give their lives to the Haitian poor, they had to give it up. They're Christian missionaries.

They are attacked sometimes by those who practice voodoo. It's a powerful force. "My wife has been held at gunpoint and pistol-whipped. And had a knife to her throat. I know to American ears that sounds sort of, that sounds horrible, you know?" It does.

photo: the stream

Why would anyone live like this when they could have lived a comfortable life? Because they believe God wants them there, and because they think the good they do for the people of Haiti is worth it. 

They see beauty in a life of sacrifice. 

(cont'd tomorrow)

Dollar Street

Gapminder is the website of Swedish statistician Hans Rosling which puts global statistics in beautiful moving charts with bubbles.

They have a new attraction called "Dollar Street" where you can see photo essays of families in many nations - their home, their income, their toys, their meals, and much more.

My post last Friday had a video of the American surgeon Jason Fader who lives in Burundi and serves rural areas. So take a look here at the way rural families live in Burundi - where Dr. Fader has chosen to live.

Foundation

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Mark Gerson had already been motivated to help African HIV patients, so when his old college friend Jon Fielder arrived in Africa as a medical missionary, Mark was ready to support him. “[I]f Jon said my philanthropic dollars would have an effect, I could absolutely trust him.”

“It is obvious to me that the work these medical missionaries do is completely extraordinary,” says Gerson.

Now Gerson and Fielder have partnered to start African Mission Healthcare Foundation (AMHF) to fund other medical missions. Recipient of the first $500,000 grant is Dr. Jon Fader. The only surgeon serving rural Burundi, he trains doctors, nurses, and other surgeons:

Givers

Among the wealthy living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, there's Mark and Erika Gerson. Erika is a rabbi, Mark is a businessman. They have the money to give generously, but their $4 million didn't end up at art museums. They put it into Christian hospitals in Africa.

photo: world.wng.org

Mark roomed in college with Jon Fielder, and respected his "moral seriousness." After college he taught for a year at a Catholic high school and developed an affection for Christianity.

His friend, Fielder, has spent his life as a Christian medical missionary.The Gersons became top donors at Fielder's HIV clinic. Last September Gerson and Fielder spent time with some of the HIV patients whose lives they have saved through their partnership.

“I learned the Torah, the Old Testament, commands us to love the stranger more than 36 times,” said Gerson, the fastest-talking New Yorker you’ll meet. "and who is more of a stranger than people suffering from TB or AIDS or any number of disabilities in a rural African village?”

Transformed

Four hundred years after Jesus Christ, a teenage boy was kidnapped from his home on the island of Britain and began a life of slavery on a pagan island where human sacrifice and slavery were normal. Alone and tending sheep for months, he turned to the God he had learned about in his limited Christian education.

By faith he escaped captivity, returned home, and pursued a holy life of service. Then God called Patrick back to the land where he'd been enslaved, and the Celts were transformed as they received the Christian faith gladly.

They sensed that sacrifice was necessary. But they found out from this missionary that, instead of demanding human sacrifice, the one true God had actually sacrificed His own Son on their behalf:

"Yes, the Irish would have said, here is a story that answers our deepest needs--and answers them in a way so good that we could never even have dared dream of it. We can put away our knives and abandon our altars. These are no longer required. God . . has given us his own Son, and we are washed clean in the blood of this lamb. God does not hate us; he loves us."

In the next few centuries these Celts did something that would change the world . . (cont'd in tomorrow's post)

From "How the Irish Saved Civilization," by Thomas Cahill

Missionaries

Speaking of missionaries (yesterday's post), there's actual data from a Harvard paper showing that missionaries have had an unexpected effect on history:

"Conversionary" Protestants (CPs) were a crucial catalyst that initiated the development and spread of religious liberty, mass education, mass printing, newspapers, voluntary organizations and most major colonial reforms. In short, CPs helped create conditions that made stable democracy more likely – regardless of whether many people converted to Protestantism."

Everyone, believer or not, should be able to appreciate that missionaries helped bring about the modern world.

East LA kid

(first of three)

Rudy Carrasco grew up without his parents as "a displaced Mexican kid" in East Los Angeles. But he sees God's grace in his life, and he has a passionate heart for the urban poor.

Drawing on his experiences, he believes certain things can make a permanent difference in the lives of the poor - he'll explain it to you in this video.

As a ten-year-old in Sunday School, he had the revelation that God cares about cities. So he decided, "‘Okay. I want to be a part of that. I want to be a part of a God who loves me and cares about a place in order to transform it.’”

Good missionary

NY Times writer Ross Douthat makes the point that Christian missionaries fighting ebola in Africa are carrying on a tradition that goes back two millennia.

Back in the Roman Empire during the first few centuries after Christ, the Christ-following Galileans were known for their humanitarian aid to the sick and the poor.  
Fourth century emperor Julian complained that “all men see that our people lack aid” from pagan sources, even as “the impious Galilaeans support not only their own poor but ours as well.” 

Douthat finds that complaining tone in a Slate writer who disapproves of missionaries courageously fighting disease today in western Africa.  The writer seems to think that "the separation of medicine and religion should be absolute, proselytization is wicked/backward/ignorant, helping people is what governments and secular groups are supposed to do."

The secular mind may disapprove Christians who don't do enough good and Christians who do too much good.